Temporary Immortality
by little miss jolie
Summary: It all started with a muddy equestrienne, a warm cafe sheltering her from the rain, and a socially-awkward child prodigy. "So you're telling me you're a genius, a vigilante, and that you've been holding out on me?" "...Uh, yeah... sorry..." "Man, I thought my life was interesting." (Rated T for gore, dark themes later on and swearing.)
1. Prologue

_**A/N: I know, I know. I said I'm leaving , blah blah blah. But I figured I needed a break from my original works of fiction (Path Through the Stars, the Spinner, and the Riders of Aurulean). **_

_**So let's get a few things straight. Yes, there will be some HiroXOC because I mean, come on. Two hormonal teens? Pfft. Also would be fun to write. Anyway, also to quote my friend (jokingly), "You're Asian, I'm Asian, that makes a pretty good equation!" XD**_

_**But this fic will mainly focus on said OC, her development and the plot. **_

XXX

San Fransokyo was always bursting with life, that was a given.

As the sun rose over the east and cast its watery glow over the roiling Pacific Ocean, the nightlife soon grew faint and quiet as the people retired to their beds; men and women clad in crisp business attire starting to emerge and doctors in blue scrubs and other men and women began to commute to work.

Soon enough, the fog that San Fransokyo was known for began to obscure the sun, enveloping the bustling city in velvety mist.

Whereas most inhabitants were used to this kind of weather, one girl wasn't.

She was perched high up in an oak tree with many twisting boughs, overlooking everyone else who were cavorting and playing in the San Fransokyo Communal Park.

Sure, it was nice enough, she conceded as she reclined against the rough tree bark. But she wished there was less buildings… less manufactured structures, less concrete sidewalks. More trees, more well-worn trails and paths… and the sun. What about the sun?

14-year old Hoa Phong Li laughed inwardly at herself. Her friends often teased her for being a nature-enthusiast, but it was too true and all of them would have a good laugh at it.

Brushing a strand of dark hair away, she adjusted her thick, cats-eye glasses that perched precariously on her rather flat and broad nose. Her dark brown hair fell to her waist (in the proper Vietnamese fashion, her mother would say) and parted messily down the left-side. Her tan, bronzed skin seemed in stark contrast to her surroundings. Her dark brown eyes scanned her iPhone screen, as she slipped her headphones on and selected her favorite song.

Sighing happily, she pulled the hood of her dark, navy blue jacket over her head as she snuggled into her red scarf.

For a while, she sat there, clad in her hoodie, boots and jeans peacefully. Her chest rose slowly up and down as she dozed, ignoring the other people's piercing gazes.

Then something- rather unexpected- disturbed her serenity.

A droplet, so infinitesimally small, of water landed on her nose. She twitched.

As soon as she came to, it was already pouring.

Children screamed shrilly as their mothers whipped out their extra-large umbrellas and shoved their families under it. The father ushered them to the cars, and soon the park was devoid of any life.

Hoa Phong really didn't want to move. She she crossed her fingers that the tree canopy would shield her from the rain.

It did. For about five seconds.

Yowling and pulling over her hood, she sprung out of the tree. In her haste, she landed on her right foot and felt pain lance up her leg and an audible _crack! _couldn't be good. Gritting her teeth, she shoved her iPhone into her pocket and made a dash for shelter.

Streaking across the saturated soil and slippery grass, she yelped as she tripped and fell face-first into a grass-patch. Spitting out a blade of grass and frantically trying to scrub mud out of her her hair, she scrambled to her feet.

Hoa Phong dashed across the street, feet pounding on the wet asphalt. Tearing down the block, she skidded the corner.

Through her rain-speckled glasses, she could dimly make out the shape of a familiar place. It was that small cafe that her family-they had recently moved to San Fransokyo- had eaten dinner at.

'_What was it called?" _she desperately racked her brain for the name. "The Lucky Cat Cafe!" she screeched, remembering.

Sprinting down the sidewalk she didn't wait a minute to yank open the door.

Huffing haggardly, she slumped against one of the glass walls with a relieved sigh.

"Um…" a voice said, "...can I help you with anything?"

She froze. Her heart quickened, and she tried to keep her breathing under control. She wasn't boy-crazy per say, but hell, _hormones._

As she slowly lifted her gaze and met the awkwardly confused brown eyes of the boy in front of her, all she could think was:

"_I'm in deep shit now, aren't I?"_

_XXX_

_**A/N: I know, an unusually short chapter. But I feel like I've accomplished what I've wanted to happen right now. SO CIAO! UNTIL NEXT TIME!**_


	2. Chapter 1

So much for a romantic meeting.

For the first three minutes, they stood stock-still, staring at each other and taking everything.

Hoa Phong could've sworn she could hear every individual drop of rain pelting on the glass doors.

She let her gaze rove over him, taking in his gangly and spindly frame, awkwardly big head, messy black hair, warm brown eyes, and that adorkable gap between his two teeth.

He eyed her critically, noting her muddy attire, sopping wetness and pool of water at her feet; how she probably looked like a ragged vagabond and homeless person; the grass bits stuck in her hair, her headphones dangling haphazardly from her neck…

He cleared his throat awkwardly, leaning his broom against a stool. "You're kinda getting mud all over the floor…"

Then she said something really intelligent: "Oh-um-sorry-hi!" although it came out as a mortified squeak.

Before he could respond, a set of feet could be heard clomping down the stairs. "Hi-ro!" the voice called. It sounded familiar to Hoa Phong. "Did someone come inside?"

"Uh, yeah, Aunt Cass!" Hiro, the boy, called back, inquisitively glancing back at Hoa Phong.

"Em, if you don't mind-" Hoa Phong started, taking a step forward. As it so happened to be, it was apparently a bad decision on her part. Pain stabbed at her ankle, lancing up and her leg. Yelping, she face-planted on the floor.

"Oh my goodness!" Aunt Cass screeched, watching Hoa Phong fall on her face. She raced down the stairs, snatching up a napkin and dabbing the mud off of her face as she helped the girl up. "Oh, I remember you! Your family ate dinner here, yes? You, your parents and your older sister?"

"Yep," Hoa Phong meekly replied out of the haze of pain.

Hiro was busy mopping up the muddy tracks Hoa Phong left behind, and took the liberty to poke and prod at her ankle. "Aunt Cass, I think she might've sprained it or something. Hairline-fractured it, at the worse."

"Well, let's get her upstairs and cleaned up!" Aunt Cass helped Hoa Phong hop and limp up the stairs. Hiro trailed after them like an awkward, lost puppy.

Hoa Phong's limp, soaked hair hung in the way of her vision, water dripping down into her eyes causing her to blink rapidly. Through her rain-speckles glasses, she could vaguely make out the second floor the building. Her teeth began to chatter, shivers running up and down her spine.

Aunt Cass dragged Hoa Phong to the bathroom and sat her down on the edge of the tub. Hiro grabbed a towel and passed it to Aunt Cass, whom proceeded to dab the dirt and water off of Hoa Phong's face.

The girl spluttered, yanking off her glasses. Hiro quickly cleaned them and passed them back to her, then he rummaged through the bathroom cabinet for first-aid supplies.

"Aha!" he exclaimed, ducking out of the cabinet with a roll of ace bandages. Aunt Cass had turned on the tub, warm water spouting from the spigot. After Hoa Phong nodded shakily, Aunt Cass helped wash her hair free of mud. They pulled off her jacket and headphones and phone, and wrapped her in warm towels. Finally, with her ankle bandaged and her being cleaner and somewhat warmer she chattered: "C-can I call my parents?"

"Oh, of course!" Aunt Cass passed Hoa Phong her phone, which had been sitting on the counter drying off from the rain.

Nodding in thanks, Hoa Phong quickly unlocked her phone. Then she deftly typed in a few numbers, and nervously held the phone up next to her ear.

Immediately, her mother began screaming into the phone in Vietnamese.

Hoa Phong winced, holding the phone away from her ear. Hiro was clearly trying to not laugh, whereas Aunt Cass looked a little more contrite.

"_Mom," _Hoa Phong replied back in rapid-fire Vietnamese, "_I'm fine- no, I'm not in the rain, I'm warm and safe- yes, I know, I'll be back- I'm in the cafe where we ate dinner last night- yes, with that lady named Cassandra- no, seriously, don't come out in the rain to look for me. Yeah- I know, but if you drive in this rain you'll crash and die and that would- ah, okay… yeah, pick me up after the rain stops…_" She switched to English. "Yeah, yeah, yeah," she mumbled into the phone, eyes downcast, "love you too. Bye."

With a sharp beep, Hoa Phong's mother hung up. The girl looked mildly uncomfortable at her tirade with her mother, but Hiro, being the little actor he was quickly wiped off his amused expression. With an apologetic expression, the Vietnamese girl ran a hand through her damp hair and handed the phone back to Cass.

The woman gave Hoa Phong a look of concern. "Honey, is there a place you can stay in this rain? The storms here get pretty bad, you know."

Hoa Phong primly folded her hands in her lap. Her perch at the edge of the bathtub was slightly uncomfortable, the cold linoleum under her feet smooth. The bathroom was small, with the sink and toilet and shower all in close quarters of each other. It was a modest sort of living- there were two bottles in the shower as well as a bar of soap, with the bare minimum toiletries, Hoa Phong noticed.

Hoa Phong focused her unnerving, unwavering gaze on Cass. "Um… no. My dad is at work in his clinic which is about an hour away, and my mom is still at her work. It's also an hour away. And, uh, my sister is probably still at school. And she's not old enough to have a driving license or a car yet… so, uh… no."

The woman stood up, brushing invisible dirt from her immaculate pink apron. She clucked disapprovingly. Hiro was standing behind his aunt, eyeing Hoa Phong like something the cat had dragged him (dammit, _contempt was so not the basis of a good relationship_). Cass blinked her warm green eyes at Hoa Phong. "Oh, you can stay here! Really, it's no worry. I can whip up some warm soup for dinner!"

The Vietnamese girl blanched, her tan skin paling slightly. Adjusting her glasses, she brushed a strand of dark hair away from her face. "I don't want to impose anything on you! Seriously, I can, like, walk home or something-" It was true that she didn't want to impose anything on the exceedingly magnanimous lady, but also because spending another moment Hiro just to embarrass herself was _not _on her bucket list.

"No, seriously, don't worry about it!" Cass shook her head, helping the girl stand up on her shaking legs. "I'd hate for you to get hypothermia." She placed her hands on Hoa Phong's shoulders in a maternal way, guiding the girl out of the bathroom. Hiro trailed behind them like a kicked puppy.

Cass guided Hoa Phong down a short hall (the girl shivered at the sensation of the cold, smooth wood flooring underneath her wet feet) and they entered a chicly-decorated kitchen space. The room was mostly spartan, but in the right corner, there was a marble counter island and a bunch of ceiling lanterns and a stove where Cass probably cooked. In the other corner, there was a television set and a couch. On the wall opposite of where they had just entered, two sets different stairs lead to the downstairs dining area of the cafe and the upstairs of presumably their rooms.

"I'm sure Hiro won't mind making a new friend!" Cass prattled on cheerfully (Hoa Phong blushed and Hiro shifted uncomfortably on his feet). "All his friends are college students at the SFIT, you know. My little prodigy!" Her eyes glazed over with pride as she marched Hoa Phong to the other end of the room. "So I thought it might be nice for him to have friends his age, you know? What do you think about it, sweetie?"

Hiro's expression blatantly said: _help me._ He coughed awkwardly. "Uh... sure…?"

"Wonderful!" Cass chirped, pushing both Hiro and Hoa Phong up the stairs (both mumbled an apology as they bumped into each other- more like crashed, in Hoa Phong's case. She cursed her unsteady legs). "Now, shoo! Have some bonding time, or whatever!"

And soon, Hoa Phong found herself whisked away by the she-demon who killed her victims with generosity to the room where Hiro resided. She was plopped on the bed, complemented with a pat on her head. And in the wake of the smell of _sakura_ blossoms, Cass was gone.

Hiro plopped onto the bed next to Hoa Phong.

The girl felt her heart pound in her chest. She gulped.

Trapped in the lion's den. _Fabulous._

XXX

**a/n: LOL**

**I HAVENT UPDATED THIS IN SO LONG IM SORRY**

**XD**

**updates WILL be very sporadic**

**because im focusing on my SasuSaku anthologies and others and my original fics on FP**

**but if you guys end up showing a lot of support and liking this fic, i'll be sure to try and make an effort and update and write faster**

**KK THNXS BAI**


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